Chicago police Superintendent David Brown on Thursday announced the annual start of a citywide unit used to help tamp down violence where it’s most needed in the city.
The summer mobile unit, which began its work Thursday, is used to respond to sudden flare-ups in violence and other unrest only during warmer weather months.
But this year, Brown said the unit will have a community-policing component to it, requiring officers to use portions of their shifts to get involved in community service.
“This is not just some roving strike force,” said Brown, during a news briefing outside McCormick Place. “We’re adding a component of summer mobile to do some type of community service project as part of their workweek. We don’t want them (to be) perceived, or in actuality, a strike force, or something that’s not connected to the community.”
Brown talked to the Tribune earlier this month about how he was thinking of starting a permanent, roving citywide unit — similar to others that have come and gone through the years in the department and proven to be controversial. But if he were to start one up, he had said he would add a service component like the one he announced Thursday.
The activities could include delivering meals to senior citizens or engaging with young people, he said.
“It just reminds you that our roles are multifaceted. We can really engage the community in a lot of different ways rather than just coming in when there’s a crisis,” Brown said. “And now they go out into the community and they have this sensitivity for the community in a different way than they would without that interaction.”
Brown said the unit will be working with the city’s new summer operations center, or “SOC,” where CPD personnel monitors a network of security cameras and works with other city agencies like the CTA, the Chicago Park District and Streets & Sanitation. The SOC will be looking at 911 calls and other crime information to help determine where to deploy the mobile cops.
“When CPD officers have reason to believe there might be trouble coming to a specific block or neighborhood, the summer mobile unit is there to proactively discourage criminal activity,” Brown said.
Brown’s announcement of the unit follows the deadliest Memorial Day weekend here in five years, three days which saw 10 people fatally shot and about 40 others wounded by gunfire.
And the violence continued this week. More than 20 people were shot between Tuesday afternoon and early Wednesday, including a 5-year-old girl and two teenage boys.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot publicly admonished Brown after the Memorial Day weekend bloodshed, calling the department’s crime-fighting efforts “a fail.”
“… Whatever the strategy is, it didn’t work,” she said Tuesday.
But on Thursday, Lightfoot clarified her remark at a news conference, pledging support for her top cop. She said the “fail” comment was not directed at him personally.
“Superintendent Brown has, and will continue to have, my unflagging support, full stop,” she said.
